Artificial intelligence is tackling a critical but often overlooked problem in healthcare: the chaotic coordination within hospital operating rooms that costs the industry billions annually. According to industry analysis, hospitals lose between two to four hours of valuable operating room (OR) time each day, not during surgeries, but in the inefficient transitions between procedures. This coordination chaos, stemming from manual scheduling errors and unpredictable room turnover, creates a domino effect of delays and canceled surgeries.
The company Akara, led by CEO Conor McGinn, is at the forefront of this transformation. The firm has pivoted from developing cleaning robots to creating an ambient intelligence layer for hospitals using thermal sensor technology. This system tracks movement, occupancy, and procedural stages via heat signatures, enabling precise coordination without capturing identifiable visual data, thus addressing significant privacy concerns. McGinn describes the system as "air traffic control for hospitals."
The impact is measurable. Implementation of such AI-driven systems can reduce daily lost OR time from 2-4 hours to just 30-60 minutes. Room turnover prediction accuracy jumps from 40-60% to 85-95%, and staff coordination time per procedure can be cut from 45 minutes to 15 minutes. For a medium-sized hospital, this translates to annual cost savings of $1.2–$2.4 million, reduced to $300,000–$600,000.
This technological shift comes at a critical time as the healthcare sector faces an "existential workforce crisis," with projections suggesting 40% of the nursing workforce could leave within five years due to burnout and administrative burden. The automation aims not to replace medical professionals but to remove the administrative friction that drives them away, allowing staff to focus more on patient care.
Akara's approach, which earned it a spot on Time's Best Inventions of 2025 list, validates a broader industry realization: the most valuable technological advancements in healthcare may be the "invisible infrastructure" that optimizes coordination. The company has gained credibility through validation from the UK's National Health Service (NHS), facilitating its expansion into US hospital systems.
The operating room represents just the beginning, with the principles of ambient intelligence and privacy-preserving sensors poised to expand to emergency departments and other clinical areas, setting a new standard for healthcare infrastructure efficiency.
